Rep. Hakeem Jeffries to NYPD: Stop Targeting Minorities For Weed Arrests Despite focused attention on New York Police for low-level marijuana arrests,

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries 

Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries said  the numbers are still high and overwhelmingly black and Hispanic.

Jeffries urged the police on Tuesday to do more to change their ways, especially in targeting minorities, which according to published reports, account for 86 percent of these cases in the first quarter.

Mayor Bill de Blasio pointed to the racial breakdown in calling the arrests “unjust and wrong” in campaign literature last year.

These arrests rose to more than 50,700 in 2011. In the first quarter of de Blasio’s administration the number of arrests dropped by 9 percent, The Associated Press reported this month.

But the arrests were heading up in March, and the 2014 total still could equal last year’s roughly 28,600, Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries noted.

“The new administration promised change, but instead we got more of the same,” Jeffries said at a news conference, calling for “a fair and responsible policy.”

Police Commissioner William Bratton said the trend this year is downward overall, and discussions of both police practices and the laws surrounding marijuana possession continue with the administration.

Under a 1977 New York law, it’s a noncriminal viοlation to have less than 25 grams (about 7/8 of an ounce) of marijuana in a pocket or bag. But having that same stash open to public view is a misdemeanor, spurring an arrest and potentially a criminal record and up to three months in jail, according to a story in the Washington Examiner.

Officers were reminded in September 2011 that they couldn’t induce people to bring the drug into open view and arrests soon dropped.

Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed in 2012 to decriminalize possession of up to 15 grams of marijuana even if publicly visible. The idea has stalled in the state Legislature, the Examiner reported.

Proverbs 16:

27 An ungodly man diggeth up evil: and in his lips there is as a burning fire

Psalm 83:

3 They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones.

4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.

5 For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee: